This is a list of geodesists, people who made
notable contributions to
geodesy
Geodesy or geodetics is the science of measuring and representing the Figure of the Earth, geometry, Gravity of Earth, gravity, and Earth's rotation, spatial orientation of the Earth in Relative change, temporally varying Three-dimensional spac ...
, whether or not geodesy was their primary field. These include historical figures who laid the foundations for the field of geodesy.
Geodesists before 1900 (arranged by date)
*
Pythagoras
Pythagoras of Samos (; BC) was an ancient Ionian Greek philosopher, polymath, and the eponymous founder of Pythagoreanism. His political and religious teachings were well known in Magna Graecia and influenced the philosophies of P ...
580–490 BC (
ancient Greece
Ancient Greece () was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically r ...
)
*
Eratosthenes
Eratosthenes of Cyrene (; ; – ) was an Ancient Greek polymath: a Greek mathematics, mathematician, geographer, poet, astronomer, and music theory, music theorist. He was a man of learning, becoming the chief librarian at the Library of A ...
276–194 BC (ancient Greece)
*
Hipparchus
Hipparchus (; , ; BC) was a Ancient Greek astronomy, Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician. He is considered the founder of trigonometry, but is most famous for his incidental discovery of the precession of the equinoxes. Hippar ...
190–120 BC (ancient Greece)
*
Posidonius
Posidonius (; , "of Poseidon") "of Apameia" (ὁ Ἀπαμεύς) or "of Rhodes" (ὁ Ῥόδιος) (), was a Greeks, Greek politician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, historian, mathematician, and teacher native to Apamea (Syria), Apame ...
135–51 BC (ancient Greece)
*
Menelaus of Alexandria AD 70–140 (ancient Greece)
*
Claudius Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy (; , ; ; – 160s/170s AD) was a Greco-Roman mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, geographer, and music theorist who wrote about a dozen scientific treatises, three of which were important to later Byzantine, Islamic, and ...
AD 83–168
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...
(
Roman Egypt
Roman Egypt was an imperial province of the Roman Empire from 30 BC to AD 642. The province encompassed most of modern-day Egypt except for the Sinai. It was bordered by the provinces of Crete and Cyrenaica to the west and Judaea, ...
)
*
Al-Ma'mun
Abū al-ʿAbbās Abd Allāh ibn Hārūn al-Maʾmūn (; 14 September 786 – 9 August 833), better known by his regnal name al-Ma'mun (), was the seventh Abbasid caliph, who reigned from 813 until his death in 833. His leadership was marked by t ...
786–833 (
Iraq
Iraq, officially the Republic of Iraq, is a country in West Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to Iraq–Saudi Arabia border, the south, Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq border, the east, the Persian Gulf and ...
/
Mesopotamia
Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...
)
*
Abu Rayhan Biruni
Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (; ; 973after 1050), known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian peoples, Iranian scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously "Father of Comparative religion, Co ...
973–1048 (
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...
/
Samanid Dynasty
The Samanid Empire () was a Persianate Sunni Muslim empire, ruled by a dynasty of Iranian ''dehqan'' origin. The empire was centred in Khorasan and Transoxiana, at its greatest extent encompassing northeastern Iran and Central Asia, from 819 t ...
)
*
Muhammad al-Idrisi
Abu Abdullah Muhammad al-Idrisi al-Qurtubi al-Hasani as-Sabti, or simply al-Idrisi (; ; 1100–1165), was an Arab Muslim geographer and cartographer who served in the court of King Roger II at Palermo, Sicily. Muhammad al-Idrisi was born in C ...
1100–1166 (
Arabia
The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world.
Geographically, the ...
/Sicily)
*
Regiomontanus
Johannes Müller von Königsberg (6 June 1436 – 6 July 1476), better known as Regiomontanus (), was a mathematician, astrologer and astronomer of the German Renaissance, active in Vienna, Buda and Nuremberg. His contributions were instrument ...
1436–1476 (Germany/Austria)
*
Abel Foullon 1513–1563 or 1565 (France)
*
Pedro Nunes
Pedro Nunes (; Latin: ''Petrus Nonius''; 1502 – 11 August 1578) was a Portuguese mathematician, cosmographer, and professor, probably from a New Christian (of Jewish origin) family.Leitão, Henrique, "Para uma biografia de Pedro Nunes: O ...
1502–1578 (Portugal)
*
Gerhard Mercator 1512–1594 (Belgium/Germany)
*
Snellius (Willebrord Snel van Royen) 1580–1626 (Netherlands)
*
Christiaan Huygens
Christiaan Huygens, Halen, Lord of Zeelhem, ( , ; ; also spelled Huyghens; ; 14 April 1629 – 8 July 1695) was a Dutch mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor who is regarded as a key figure in the Scientific Revolution ...
1629–1695 (Netherlands)
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Pierre Bouguer
Pierre Bouguer () (16 February 1698, Le Croisic – 15 August 1758, Paris) was a French mathematician, geophysicist, geodesist, and astronomer. He is also known as "the father of naval architecture".
Career
Bouguer's father, Jean Bouguer, ...
1698–1758 (France & Peru)
*
Pierre de Maupertuis 1698–1759 (France)
*
Alexis Clairaut
Alexis Claude Clairaut (; ; 13 May 1713 – 17 May 1765) was a French mathematician, astronomer, and geophysicist. He was a prominent Newtonian whose work helped to establish the validity of the principles and results that Isaac Newton, Sir Isaa ...
1713–1765 (France)
*
Johann Heinrich Lambert
Johann Heinrich Lambert (; ; 26 or 28 August 1728 – 25 September 1777) was a polymath from the Republic of Mulhouse, at that time allied to the Switzerland, Swiss Confederacy, who made important contributions to the subjects of mathematics, phys ...
1728–1777 (France)
*
Roger Joseph Boscovich
Roger Joseph Boscovich (, ; ; ; 18 May 1711 – 13 February 1787) was a Croatian physicist, astronomer, mathematician, philosopher, diplomat, poet, theologian, Jesuit priest, and a polymath from the Republic of Ragusa.[Venetian Republic
The Republic of Venice, officially the Most Serene Republic of Venice and traditionally known as La Serenissima, was a sovereign state and Maritime republics, maritime republic with its capital in Venice. Founded, according to tradition, in 697 ...]
)
*
Pierre Méchain
Pierre François André Méchain (; 16 August 1744 – 20 September 1804) was a French astronomer and surveyor who, with Charles Messier, was a major contributor to the early study of deep-sky objects and comets.
Life
Pierre Méchain was bo ...
1744–1804 (France)
*
Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre
Jean Baptiste Joseph, chevalier Delambre (19 September 1749 – 19 August 1822) was a French mathematician, astronomer, historian of astronomy, and geodesist. He was also director of the Paris Observatory, and author of well-known books on the ...
1749–1822 (France)
*
Ino Tadataka 1745–1818 (Japan)
*
Georg von Reichenbach 1771–1826 (Germany)
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Pierre-Simon Laplace
Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace (; ; 23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827) was a French polymath, a scholar whose work has been instrumental in the fields of physics, astronomy, mathematics, engineering, statistics, and philosophy. He summariz ...
1749–1827 (France)
*
Adrien-Marie Legendre
Adrien-Marie Legendre (; ; 18 September 1752 – 9 January 1833) was a French people, French mathematician who made numerous contributions to mathematics. Well-known and important concepts such as the Legendre polynomials and Legendre transforma ...
1752–1833 (France)
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Johann Georg von Soldner
Johann Georg von Soldner (16 July 1776 in Feuchtwangen, Ansbach – 13 May 1833 in Bogenhausen, Munich) was a German physicist, mathematician and astronomer, first in Berlin and later in 1808 in Munich.
Life
He was born in Feuchtwangen in A ...
1776–1833 (Germany)
*
George Everest
Sir George Everest, (, ; 4 July 1790 – 1 December 1866) was a British surveyor and geographer who served as Surveyor General of India from 1830 to 1843.
After a military education, Everest joined the East India Company and arrived in I ...
1790–1866 (England/India)
*
Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel
Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel (; 22 July 1784 – 17 March 1846) was a German astronomer, mathematician, physicist, and geodesist. He was the first astronomer who determined reliable values for the distance from the Sun to another star by the method ...
1784–1846 (Germany)
*
Heinrich Christian Schumacher 1780–1850 (Germany/
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...
)
*
Carl Friedrich Gauss
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (; ; ; 30 April 177723 February 1855) was a German mathematician, astronomer, geodesist, and physicist, who contributed to many fields in mathematics and science. He was director of the Göttingen Observatory and ...
1777–1855 (Germany)
*
Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve 1793–1864 (Russian Empire)
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Johann Jacob Baeyer
Johann Jacob Baeyer (born 5 November 1794 in Berlin, died 10 September 1885 in Berlin) was a German geodesist and a lieutenant-general in the Royal Prussian Army. He was the first director of the Royal Prussian Geodetic Institute and is regarded ...
1794–1885 (Germany)
*
George Biddell Airy
Sir George Biddell Airy (; 27 July 18012 January 1892) was an English mathematician and astronomer, as well as the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics from 1826 to 1828 and the seventh Astronomer Royal from 1835 to 1881. His many achievements inc ...
1801–1892 (England)
*
Carl Christopher Georg Andræ 1812–1893 (Denmark)
*
Karl Maximilian von Bauernfeind 1818–1894 (Germany)
*
Wilhelm Jordan Wilhelm Jordan may refer to:
* Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Jordan (1819–1904), known as Wilhelm Jordan, German writer and politician
* Wilhelm Jordan (geodesist) (1842–1899), German scientist, noted for the Gauss–Jordan elimination algorithm
{{hn ...
1842–1899 (Germany)
*
Hervé Faye
Hervé Auguste Étienne Albans Faye ( – ) was a French astronomer, born at Saint-Benoît-du-Sault (Indre) and educated at the École Polytechnique, which he left in 1834, before completing his course, to accept a position in the Paris Observ ...
1814–1902 (France)
*
George Gabriel Stokes
Sir George Gabriel Stokes, 1st Baronet, (; 13 August 1819 – 1 February 1903) was an Irish mathematician and physicist. Born in County Sligo, Ireland, Stokes spent his entire career at the University of Cambridge, where he served as the Lucasi ...
1819–1903 (England)
*
Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero
Carlos Ibáñez e Ibáñez de Ibero, 1st Marquis of Mulhacén, (14 April 1825 – 28 or 29 January 1891) was a Spanish divisional general and geodesist. He represented Spain at the 1875 Conference of the Metre Convention and was the first presid ...
1825–1891 (Spain)
*
Henri Poincaré
Jules Henri Poincaré (, ; ; 29 April 185417 July 1912) was a French mathematician, Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philosophy of science, philosopher of science. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathemati ...
1854–1912 (France)
*
Alexander Ross Clarke
Alexander Ross Clarke Royal Society of London, FRS FRSE (1828–1914) was a British geodesist, primarily remembered for his calculation of the Principal Triangulation of Britain (1858), the calculation of the Figure of the Earth (1858, 1860, ...
1828–1914 (England)
*
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American scientist, mathematician, logician, and philosopher who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". According to philosopher Paul Weiss (philosopher), Paul ...
1839–1914 (United States)
*
Friedrich Robert Helmert
Friedrich Robert Helmert (31 July 1843 – 15 June 1917) was a German geodesist and statistician with important contributions to the theory of errors.
Career
Helmert was born in Freiberg, Kingdom of Saxony. After schooling in Freiberg and ...
1843–1917 (Germany)
*
Heinrich Bruns 1848–1919 (Germany)
*
Loránd Eötvös
Baron Loránd Eötvös de Vásárosnamény (or simply Loránd Eötvös ; ; ; 27 July 1848 – 8 April 1919), also called Baron Roland von Eötvös in English literature, was a Hungarian physicist. He is remembered today largely for his work on ...
1848–1919 (Hungary)
*
Otto Hilgard Tittmann 1850–1938 (United States)
20th century geodesists (alphabetically arranged)
A
*
Oscar S. Adams, 1874–1962 (United States)
B
*
Tadeusz Banachiewicz, 1882–1954 (Poland)
*
Michael Bevis, 1954 (England)
*
Arne Bjerhammar, 1917–2011 (Sweden)
*
Giovanni Boaga
Giovanni Boaga (February 28, 1902 – November 17, 1961) was an Italian mathematician and geodesy professor.
He was born in Trieste and died in Tripoli, Libya. His Gauss-Boaga Projection is the standard projection used in Italian topography by ...
, 1902–1961 (Italy)
*
Guy Bomford
Brigadier Guy Bomford (28 June 1899 – 10 February 1996; also published as G. Bomford or simply G.B.) was a British geodesist who, at various times in his career, worked for both the Survey of India and the Corps of Royal Engineers. He is best ...
, 1899–1996 (England)
*
William Bowie, 1872–1940 (United States)
C
*
Éric Calais
Éric Calais is a French geologist-geophysicist, born in 1964, internationally recognized practitioner of high-precision space geodesy (GPS and InSAR radar interferometry) and a pioneer in its applications to measure seismic deformations at the bou ...
, 1964 (France)
*
André-Louis Cholesky, 1875–1918 (France)
*
Luís Cruls
Luíz Cruls or Luís Cruls or Louis Ferdinand Cruls (21 January 1848 – 21 June 1908) was a Belgian- Brazilian astronomer and geodesist. He was Director of the Brazilian National Observatory from 1881 to 1908, led the commission charged with ...
, 1848–1908 (Brazil)
D
*
James de Graaff-Hunter, 1881–1967 (United Kingdom/British Empire)
F
*
Irene Kaminka Fischer, 1907–2009 (United States)
*
Buckminster Fuller
Richard Buckminster Fuller (; July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, writer, designer, inventor, philosopher, and futurist. He styled his name as R. Buckminster Fuller in his writings, publishing more t ...
, 1895–1983 (United States)
H
*
John Fillmore Hayford
John Fillmore Hayford (May 19, 1868 – March 10, 1925) was an eminent United States geodesist. His work involved the study of isostasy and the construction of a reference ellipsoid for approximating the figure of the Earth. Hayford was elected ...
, 1868–1925 (United States)
*
Veikko Aleksanteri Heiskanen
Veikko Aleksanteri Heiskanen (V. A. Heiskanen; also spelled Weikko Aleksanteri (or W. A.) Heiskanen; 23 July 1895 – 23 October 1971) was a Finnish geodesist and geophysicist. He was known for his refinement of George Biddell Airy and John Hen ...
, 1895–1971 (Finland/United States)
*
Reino Antero Hirvonen, 1908–1989 (Finland)
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Friedrich Hopfner, 1881–1949 (Austria)
*
Martin Hotine
Brigadier Martin Hotine CMG CBE (17 June 1898 – 12 November 1968) was the head of the Trigonometrical and Levelling Division of the Ordnance Survey responsible for the 26-year-long retriangulation of Great Britain (1936–1962) and was the ...
, 1898–1968 (England)
J
*
Harold Jeffreys
Sir Harold Jeffreys, FRS (22 April 1891 – 18 March 1989) was a British geophysicist who made significant contributions to mathematics and statistics. His book, ''Theory of Probability'', which was first published in 1939, played an importan ...
, 1891–1989 (England)
K
*
William M. Kaula, 1926–2000 (United States)
*
Karl-Rudolf Koch 1935 (Germany)
*
Feodosy Nikolaevich Krasovsky, 1878–1948 (Russian Empire/USSR)
L
*
Walter Davis Lambert, 1879–1968 (United States)
*
Laurence Patrick Lee, 1913–1985 (New Zealand)
M
*
Mikhail Sergeevich Molodenskii, 1909–1991 (Russia)
O
*
John A. O'Keefe, 1916–2000 (United States)
P
*
Georges Perrier
Georges Perrier (born 1943) is a French chef who emigrated to the United States in 1967 and lived in Philadelphia, where he founded and ran Le Bec-Fin and other restaurants, bars and cafés across the country.
Early life
At age 12, Perrier crea ...
, 1872–1946 (France)
R
*
Karl Ramsayer, 1911–1982 (Germany)
S
*
Hellmut Schmid
Hellmut H. Schmid (12 September 1914 – 27 April 1998) was a Swiss professor of geodesy and photogrammetry. He taught at ETH Zürich (Switzerland). In the 1950s, he worked on space exploration in the United States. Between 1968 and 1974, he promo ...
, 1914–1998 (Switzerland)
T
*
Pierre Tardi, 1897–1972 (France)
V
*
Yrjö Väisälä
Yrjö Väisälä (; 6 September 1891 – 21 July 1971) was a Finnish astronomer and physicist.
His main contributions were in the field of optics. He was also active in geodetics, astronomy and optical metrology. He had an affectionate ni ...
, 1889–1971 (Finland)
*
Petr Vaníček, 1935 (Canada)
*
Felix Andries Vening-Meinesz, 1887–1966 (Netherlands)
*
Thaddeus Vincenty, 1920–2002 (Poland)
W
*
Alfred Wegener
Alfred Lothar Wegener (; ; 1 November 1880 – November 1930) was a German climatologist, geologist, geophysicist, meteorologist, and polar researcher.
During his lifetime he was primarily known for his achievements in meteorology and ...
, 1880–1930 (Germany/Greenland)
*
Hans-Georg Wenzel 1949–1999 (Germany)
*
Gladys West 1930 (United States)
See also
*
Geodesy
Geodesy or geodetics is the science of measuring and representing the Figure of the Earth, geometry, Gravity of Earth, gravity, and Earth's rotation, spatial orientation of the Earth in Relative change, temporally varying Three-dimensional spac ...
*
*
*
*
*
References
{{Reflist
Geophysicists
Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and properties of Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. Geophysicists conduct investigations acros ...
geodesists
Geophysicists
Geophysics () is a subject of natural science concerned with the physical processes and properties of Earth and its surrounding space environment, and the use of quantitative methods for their analysis. Geophysicists conduct investigations acros ...
Geodesists
Geodesy or geodetics is the science of measuring and representing the geometry, gravity, and spatial orientation of the Earth in temporally varying 3D. It is called planetary geodesy when studying other astronomical bodies, such as planets ...